


Jeeves and the Heroic Rescue

by Culumacilinte



Category: A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Mistaken Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-18
Updated: 2007-06-18
Packaged: 2017-10-15 11:59:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Culumacilinte/pseuds/Culumacilinte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Jack is an Evil Bastard, Jeeves is a Hero, and Bertie is rescued from Almost Certain Peril.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jeeves and the Heroic Rescue

It was a rummy and distressing situation in which I found myself, readers, decidedly rummy and distressing.  I was, at the moment, down a rather shabby little London sidestreet, being stared in the face by one of the more unpleasant people I have ever encountered in my life, even considering that mine is a life filled with Glossops and Stokers and others more unfortunate yet.  But wait- I’m getting ahead of myself; I’ve started in the middle of the tale, and knowing how much I hate that in a story, I certainly shan’t inflict it upon you.

So, to go back to the beginning, I was taking a stroll ‘round the old metrop with Jeeves in tow, as per usual, when I realised suddenly that I must have taken a wrong turning at some point, for I had absolutely no bally idea where I was.  Furthermore, and rather more distressing to self, Jeeves was gone.  Now, for those of you who know anything about me, you know that old Bertram is rarely seen without his trusty valet, and I’m ashamed to say that the sudden absence of the Jeevesian presence induced something of a panic in me.

Deuced irritating thing to happen, but there we are.  I allowed the panic to frolic freely for a few moments before steeling my spine and telling it firmly that it was not at all welcome here, thank you very much, and that it should kindly hie its way away from the Wooster person.  Wisely, it did; we Woosters may not be the brainiest lot, but we can be pretty dashed ferocious when the mood takes us, let me tell you.

But I’ve got myself sidetracked, it seems- where was I?  Oh yes, I was down this rather seedy little street, sans valet, and after a moment or so of rather awkward indecision, I resolved my will that I should go forward.  After all, how much more lost could a chap get?  I had not gone far (whistling a jaunty little tune to keep the spirits up) when I saw before me a back resembling in every way that of my valet.  It must be Jeeves!  Heartened, I called out.

‘What ho, Jeeves!’

He didn’t answer, which was most peculiar, Jeeves after all not being the sort of bird to ignore a cry from the Young Master.  I tried again.

‘I say, Jeeves old thing, everything oojah-cum-spiff?  You had me worried there for a mo’…’

 

I trailed off quite suddenly then, feeling rather like a man who, having been chasing rainbows, has had one turn and bite him on the leg.  The man before me was most decidedly _not_ Jeeves. 

Indeed, upon first glance, his dial certainly did bear a certain resemblance to the fine and chiselled features of my man, but said f. and c. features were currently twisted into an expression of such malice as the Jeevesian countenance has never borne, save perhaps when regarding a pair of particularly ill-advised violet argyle socks which B. Wooster may have purchased at some point.  Furthermore, he wore a black eye-patch over one eye, giving him the air of one of those swashbuckling pirate Johnnies out of the movies.  I gulped, feeling decidedly queer about the midsection.

‘Ah, what ho!  Terribly sorry, old fruit!’  I called out anxiously, waving a bit feebly, ‘I ah- mistook you for someone else.  I’ll, uh, just be going now,’ 

With that unfortunately unmanly parting remark, I turned to go, but the rum fellow with the eye-patch spoke, and I was instantly frozen as stiff as one of those embalmed Egyptian chappies. 

‘Mr. Wooster,’ he said, sounding rather calm and chilly, ‘Bertram Wooster.  Am I correct?’

‘Er…’  I turned to him, seeing nothing else for it, and nodded.  ‘Yes, that would indeed be I, my good sir.’  I pulled myself up to my full height, mustering my courage much like the grand old Sieur de Wooster (from whose noble line old Bertram is descended) must have done at the Battle of Agincourt.  ‘And what about you, my good chappie?’  I asked, feeling the vocal cords quiver, ‘Bit of a rum do- you knowing my name and me not knowing yours.’

Eye-patch gave me a Look, smiling a decidedly rummy smile.  ‘You may call me Jack, Bertie,’ he said.

I didn’t answer.  He continued, still in that queer, slow fashion.

‘Tell me, Bertie, do you know a man called Neddy Muldoon?’

Neddy Muldoon?  I searched the deep (and generally unplumbed) recesses of my thought for a bird of that name- none of the blokes down at the Drones were called Neddy or Muldoon, certainly, and I couldn’t recall anyone back at Oxford with the moniker.  Frowning slightly- thought of the too deep variety tends to have that effect on the Wooster dial- I shook my head.  ‘‘Fraid not, old boy.’

Jack’s face darkened and it occurred to me rather belatedly that he might not be the sort of man who would appreciate being referred to as “old boy.” 

‘Very well,’ he continued forebodingly, ‘have you ever _heard_ of a man called Neddy Muldoon?’

Well, the old coconut was beginning to feel like one of those whirly top-thingummies as I shook my head yet again.  The smile that formed on Jack’s face then was more of a- whatsit- oh, dash it; this is why I need Jeeves about.  One of those sorts of ominous, threatening types of smile that isn’t really a smile at all.  Deucedly uncomfortable, whatever it’s called. 

‘Excellent,’ he murmured, ‘Now tell me, Bertie- you’re a man who cares for his country, are you not?’

‘I-’ An eyebrow went up, in that same sort of way Jeeves sometimes gets when he’s pipped about something- a silent reprimand, as it were.  Or a warning perhaps, in this case.  ‘Oh, rather!’  I ejaculated suddenly, ‘I should bally well say so.  No-one more patriotic than Bertram Wooster, you know.  All for old Blighty, you know- jolly old England and all that, eh?’  I laughed a bit weakly.

‘I am glad to hear that, Bertie.  I myself am a man who cares greatly for our glorious nation, as do the people I work with.  And I’m sure that you will do everything in your power to help our Cause,’ I could practically hear the capital in the way he said the word, ‘won’t you?’

A smile flickered over his visage, and he stepped forward a few paces.  As he did so, he walked into a stray beam of sunlight that had made its way into the alley somehow and I caught a glint of it reflecting off something he held in his hand.  I jumped back farther than I think I have ever jumped backwards in my life, my panic returned in full force.

 ‘Well, I say, Jack- that is to say- stop!’

He stopped, looking at me in a way that was almost polite.  ‘Yes, Bertie?’

I didn’t at all like this high-handed use of my first name and I told him so.  He did not appear at all fazed, merely twisting the fingers of his right hand so that the something shiny he held once again caught the light and I was unpleasantly reminded of why I had stopped him in the first place.

‘Jack!’

‘Is there something you wish to say, Bertie?’ 

‘I should bally well say there is- you’ve a knife in your hand!  And- and I should very much like to know why you’re so, so cavalierly waving it about!’

He leered- that’s the word I was searching for before!- at me and held up a small, but deuced sharp-looking knife, twirling it easily in his hand and regarding it with a sort of disinteresting fascination, if that means what I think it ought to. 

‘I am indeed carrying a knife, Bertie- a most astute observation.  I find it most wise to always carry such an item on my person; after all, one never knows when it may come in useful.’

‘Er- haha, yes, quite.’  I found that I couldn’t seem to say much else, and Jack smiled that rummy smile again. 

‘Indeed,’ he twirled the knife again, smiling at it as fondly as if it were an old chum.  ‘I think you will find, Bertie, that you are going to become most intimately acquainted with what precisely this little friend of mine can do.  It is most talented, at least when in the correct hands.  Now-’

But just at that point, the most curious thing happened; he went absolutely silent, gaping rather like an unattractive guppy, and there was a familiar sound: a faint, gentle cough, like a mountain-goat on a distant hilltop.  The unmistakeable sound of my man Jeeves sailing into action.  I looked up (I had before been so focussed on the knife that I hadn’t bothered to look around to notice any of the scenery) to find that Jeeves had shimmered up behind him and seemed to be gently pressing at the back of the chap’s neck with one black-gloved hand. 

Jeeves!  Never had I been quite so glad to see the dependable black bowler hat and implacable phizog of my valet, and many times have I been glad to see the chap, he having extricated myself and many friends of self from uncountable sticky circs.  I was about to cry out in welcome, but he quelled me with a swift glance.

‘I am afraid, sir,’ he murmured in tones of deadly quiet, in a way that said he was anything but afraid to deliver the news he was about to impart, ‘that Mr. Wooster will be unable to make the acquaintance of your- friend.’  He gave the knife a distasteful look.  ‘I shall be sure to convey his most sincere apologies.’

He stepped back slightly and squeezed with the hand gripping Jack’s neck, and blow me if the chap didn’t simply crumple to the ground, out like the proverbial light.  I gawped at Jeeves. 

‘By Jove, Jeeves; that was jolly good!’

‘Most kind of you, sir.’ 

‘You’re a corker, you know that Jeeves?  An absolute bally topper!  The cat’s pyjamas and all the rest of it.’

His mouth did one of those kindly muscle spasms that passes for a smile.  ‘Thank you, sir.  I endeavour to please.’

Looking down at the heaped form of Jack’s apparently unconscious body, Jeeves tugged at his cuffs ever so slightly, adjusting them.  To anyone else, he would have looked utterly unfazed, but to one who knew my man as well as I did, he seemed positively jubilant with triumph.  If he had been Bingo or Tuppy or one of my decidedly less reserved pals, he would have been fairly leaping with the sense of his victory.  But not Jeeves.  I felt a brief swelling of pride for this marvel before me before frowning once again in thought.

‘I say, Jeeves?’

‘Sir?’

‘Where where you?  I mean to say, one moment you were there, and the next I turned ‘round and you simply were not.  I should like an explanation.’

He coughed into his glove.  ‘My most heartfelt apologies, sir; I went for a walk.’

‘A walk, Jeeves?’  I scoffed, ‘We were already on a deuced walk- whatever did you need another for?’

‘I am _most_ sorry, sir.  Clearly, it was an ill-timed perambulatory venture.  I had not anticipated such an eventuality as,’ he paused delicately and looked down at Jack, ‘as this.  I shall be more vigilant in future.’

Now, it did not slip past the old Wooster bean that Jeeves had neglected to answer my question, but knowing my valet as I do, I know he always has his reasons, and being a man gifted with as many grey cells as he is, they’re almost always right.  Almost.  But I shan’t go into that now.   

‘I say,’ I had been caught full-force in another one of those deep thought thingummies, and I looked at Jeeves curiously.  ‘D’you know who that bloke was, Jeeves?

His left eyebrow raised a sixth of an inch.  ‘I could not say, sir.’

‘No, I shouldn’t think so- it was the rummiest thing, though!’

‘Sir?’

‘Well, he looked just like you!’

The look Jeeves gave me at that had a distinct quality of frigid disapproval to it and I quailed somewhat.  ‘Well, that is to say- I mean, from the back, you know- uncanny resemblance.’  I chuckled rather weakly, but he did look appeased- or at least amused- by my efforts.

Hoping to further molly-whatsit Jeeves, I meandered over to him, looking at the tall and infinitely poised form of my valet with a pleased smile. 

‘Well then, now that’s over with- shall we, ah, call the police?’

‘They are on their way as we speak, sir.’

I shook my head with a rather awed sigh- but as I always say: Jeeves moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.  Looking down at the rather unsavoury pile of Jack at our feet, I slipped an arm ‘round Jeeves’s shoulders, looking sideways at him.  He blinked at the sudden contact, looking vaguely alarmed.

‘So, what now, Jeeves?  Home?  I feel distinctly rattled.  One of your old b-and-s’s would do me a world of good, I think.’

The corner of his mouth twitched skywards ever so slightly, and one eyebrow rose fractionally as he regarded me.  ‘Home, I think, would be an excellent idea, sir.’

 


End file.
